Allowance Negotiations, Body Proportions and the Search for Dividing Fractions in the Real World9/25/2015 We wrapped up our first unit, Let's Be Rational, this Friday! It was a great start to the year and I'm SO excited for our first 7th grade book, Accentuate the Negative. In the previous unit, students tackled a number of skills: reviewing estimating with fractions, multiplying fractions and extending their knowledge to computing the quotient of fractions. We used the Connected Mathematics curriculum to make solid estimates, draw efficient models to better understand the relationship between multiplication and division and to lead us finally to the algorithm for dividing fractions. Throughout our work this unit, we also had to interpret a proposed allowance (set by our lovely parents) to figure out how much money was actually allocated to each category (i.e. 1/5 of your allowance was reserved for emergencies, with 1/2 of that being for school supply emergencies, etc.). The students loved this real-world context and even had the chance to readjust their budget for "re-negotiations."
At the end of the unit, we started to build in expressions and equations. I took this opportunity to bridge our algebraic work with biology, art and measurement. While there are many variations to human body proportions, there are certain "standard ranges" that can be used to relate body parts. For example, did you know that the length of your head is 1/8 of your height? In Math 6X, we used these ideas to write equations relating parts and to figure out an unknown length given another. Students also finished their unit presentations on dividing fractions. Students used a variety of technology (Movenote, GoogleSlides, ShowMe app) to demonstrate how dividing fractions can solve a student-designed mathematical dilemma. I was so inspired by their creativity and enthusiasm! Send me an email for the private link to their presentations! At home, here are some questions you might want to ask your child:
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We're off to a great start this year! I left the first week of school feeling inspired and with a strange sense of calm. I really missed the kiddos and am so thankful for a second year with them! We also welcome our newest addition to the course - welcome Audrey! This week, we discussed two major habits that certainly apply in the math classroom: persistence and managing impulsivity. We used real-world examples and a video of impulsivity to discuss what strategies we will use when we feel stuck. How we will persist and avoid the tendency to impulsively conclude that we don't know during our mathematical exploration?
Diving into our first unit, Let's Be Rational, we started with the importance of estimating in the real-world. We discussed what situations in life called for overestimating and underestimating. The students came up with some deeply thoughtful ideas. I was very impressed with how seriously they took this discussion. They determined that while overestimating was better when having too little would not suffice (example: going to the store to buy a certain amount of items), overestimating by too much was also wasteful, as in the case of buying wood to design a balcony for a house. I supplemented our first investigation with a Calculation Nation game called Drop Zone which the students loved. It encourages flexible thinking and certainly provides ample opportunities for students to put their estimation skills to good use. I encourage you to play this game with your child at home to provide additional practice. We also applied estimation to figure out how much each teacher had in terms of space in the community garden (see slideshow above). As I walked around and tuned into group conversations, I heard "What if we use unit rates to scale up?" Students discovered that they could use "Mrs. Reece's 1/4 of a section to figure out more complicated sections" and that "There's another Barron part in there. How many "Barrons" can fit in this section?" These deep conversations about relationships between different sections and the most efficient strategies were certainly music to my ears! Here are some thought-provoking questions you might ask your child at home:
I'm so proud of our scholars - cheers to the first week! Truly, Mrs. Tamargo |
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